So it’s Wednesday and after a night and a day and another night of not being very well (thank you migraine, please don’t feel free to visit again!) I’m back at work and as much I would like to be a lady of leisure, seriously, why would you work if you didn’t have to?, I’m glad to be at work because it means that I don’t want to drive a spike through my head to stop the pain. Yeah, I do know that maiming myself won’t actually make the headache go away but while it’s happening, I feel like it might work!
However, I’m grumpy, very, very grumpy.
I’m fed up with the migraines, I’m eating well, exercising, taking all of the vitamins that might help but essentially for 2 weeks a month I feel lousy and at least once during that time, I can’t see straight and I’m confined to lying in bed trying not to do anything to make the pain in my head worse. Looking on the bright side, since the beginning of the year the frequency and duration of them have decreased but I want them to stop and my body isn’t co-operating and there isn’t anything I can do. So I’m not a happy bunny.
I’m also in a bad mood because it’s September and today I’m going to moan about autumn. I’m not a fan. Over the past couple of weeks the internets have been full of posts waffling on about cool, crisp days and leaves changing colour, also excitement about pumpkins (mostly pumpkin spices lattes) and Halloween and Thanksgiving and Christmas. Even my actual real life friends are doing it…
Honestly, I think they’re all either a bit touched in the head and/or don’t live in the UK. Let’s break this down.
1) Autumn almost never a season of cool, crisp days in England, it’s cold and wet and grey and dark. It’s dark in the morning, it’s dark at night. What’s good about that? Also cold weather means having to wear closed in shoes, my feet want to be free and not encased in boots!
2) Pumpkins are not that great. Also why would anyone ruin the delicious coffee flavoured coffee with a huge dose of flavoured sugar and milk.
3) Halloween not a big deal in the UK if you don’t have kids and if we’re going to get all enthused for Halloween, could I make the case for apple bobbling and games and scary stories and if you must, pumpkin carving, as is traditional for England. Instead of trick or treating. I know that in the US it’s a traditional and that’s great, I love reading about it on US blogs but I can’t shake the feeling that here, it’s just begging. Especially as the kids that knock on my door generally aren’t in costumes and are teenagers, which kind of spoils the magic. Although I’m told by my neighbours that the rule on my road is that if you’re house is decorated in a Halloween-y way, the kids will knock and if it isn’t they won’t. This seems like a good approach but I can’t help but feel that trick or treating is Not Right and yes you may call me a curmudgeon if you wish.
4) Thanksgiving is a fine holiday, a time to take stock of your life and be thankful for the things you have. However, it’s an American holiday and ok, Canada has a Thanksgiving but for obvious reasons, we don’t do Thanksgiving. We do have Bonfire Night though, where we celebrate foiling a Catholic plot to blow up Parliament with fireworks and burning effigies on bonfires. It’s pretty grim, but it’s what we’ve got and we had to learn this rhyme at school and got to play with sparklers, which was quite fun. This year it falls two days after Diwali (actually Diwali falls two days before Bonfire Night, as it changes according to the Hindu calendar and the position of the moon), so West London is going to be fireworks a-go-go, people and pets of a nervous disposition should stay indoors with earplugs!
6) Please, people don’t ruin the magic of Christmas by starting it early! Advent is when you should start to get excited about Christmas, trees should go up on Christmas Eve and come down on Twelfth Night (ok I except that that might be a bit fundamentalist but if you put your tree up in November, you’ll be bored of it by Christmas Day!)
Having got that off my chest, I feel much better. There are nice things about this season, there are warm duvets, there are the birthdays (brother, best friend, nephew and mother), I eat a lot of soup around this time of year. All of this is good, I would just like to do it in the summer!
What about you? Do like autumn, what’s your favourite thing? Or would you just rather sleep until the sun comes out again?
Nic Dempsey 